Simulation/Exercise Questions

Question

Please post questions related to the simulated SAP environment and exercises in this thread.
Thanks

Answer 1

Thanks for the feedback Tim!.  Great points.  I'll try to address them all.  As a preface to all my answers, you are completely free to make students complete the exercises in a live SAP system if you place a higher value on learning the SAP navigation and peculiarities. The focus of the sims is to show how the processes in the book are executed in enterprise systems in the most simple way possible, not to teach them how to use SAP. In theory, we could have used Quickbooks or any other system for the exercises (but I would be unemployed now if we did :{) We also designed the book and sims for schools that were NOT necessarily members of the SAP UA program and don't have access to an SAP system.  With those design goals in mind, perhaps my answers below will make more sense.
Are there any plans to continue the development/refinement of the simulations? i.e. a version 2? 
> yes, just waiting on a critical mass of feedback from classroom experiences.
I've tried out the simulations and although I think it is a great idea to try to simplify learning and usage of SAP, I see several areas where they could be improved:
> Remember, the sims aren't SAP training exercises, they're process execution exercises. We're not really concerned if they remember all the SAP navigation stuff.  They are designed for a freshman in an Intro to MIS course, not for a typical, standard SAP course- although they could be modified for that purpose.
1) mullti-step instructions are given on a screen, then on the next screen there is no ability to get additional guidance, a reminder of what you are supposed to be doing, or to go back to the previous instructions. I suppose this would be ok if the students also had printed instructions somewhere, but that somewhat limits the value of online exercises. I didn't see any obvious printable instructions anywhere.
> We tried to make the sims simple enough and short enough that if they didn't remember or figure it out quickly, they could quit and start over at any time. The exercises are broken up into discreet process steps.  They can just start over that step anytime they get stuck.  We toyed with the idea of having a "help" button on each page, but found that quitting and starting over was just as effective and it made the student really pay attention the next time. Plus, we wanted to avoid students just clicking their way thru the exercises blindly, so they have to really think about where they are clicking and why.
2) The simulations don't appear to involve the use of number or text input, so you just click around with a mouse until you happen to click on the right thing.
> Some exercises use more text and number inputs than others, but most use about 80% clicks and 20% text inputs.  We purposefully made them as point and click as possible to remove a lot of "SAP" things that weren't directly related to the process concepts in the exercise, including the complete removal of transaction codes.  It is a HIGHLY simplified SAP environment and isn't designed to be a true SAP training class.  The students have to know exactly where to click and why depending on the process step, not necessarily how to manipulate the SAP interface like an expert. Theoretically, you can just click every pixel on the page till you get the right one, but that will get old after a couple steps and they'll start paying attention to what they're doing.  Plus, the quiz at the end of each set of exercises tests them on things that actually went on in the exercise.  If they don't pay attention to where and why they're clicking, they won't pass the quiz-- which is graded pass/fail.
3) There are multiple ways to do something in SAP like closing a window and returning to the main menu, but the simulation only accepts one possible way as being the correct way. This is frustrating as I needed to close a window and was doing it the way I would in real life, but I had to remember the way the simulation wants me to close a window.
>again, we highly simplified the SAP environment to remove everything that didn't add value to the process learning from the chapters.  The simulations really are "simulations", so we don't show them the 10 ways to do the same thing you find in the real SAP system.  Since the sims aren't graded except for completed/not completed, the students can do them as many times as they want.  No pressure to get everything right and they typically figure out after the first step where to click once they've messed up a couple times. 
Hope that helps. 
I'd love any other feedback you have, especially what students think of the sims.